Page 382 - Edo: Art in Japan, 1615–1868

moment of departure, or indulge his male pride in thinking that his leaving moved the courtesan emo-

tionally. Imaginatively entering into the courtesan's psychological state — her face offers not a clue —
we may speculate about two possibilities: she, too, is sad to see a special customer leave for the night,
or she is glad to see him go.
More than the image of her face (which has suffered some damage over the years), the entire
scene conveys a dispassionate aura. The yelping dog only draws further attention to her silent brooding.
At some later date the main panel was joined with another panel showing bamboo shades, which
causes us to ponder further the metaphors of separation and screening, of violable visual barriers, and
ultimately of voyeurism. The print artist Kitagawa Utamaro would use this technique of screening with

cat. 238 sophisticated effect over a century later in prints on the theme of women perceived through bamboo 381
Attributed to Hishikawa blinds or a mosquito net (cat. 256).
Moronobu, Kabuki
at the Nakamura Theater, As visible in the early genre paintings discussed, and in later paintings of the ukiyoe tradition,
c. 1690, detail from a pair of
six-panel screens; an artist's technical prowess, color sense, and creativity are often best demonstrated in the meticulous
ink, color, and gold on paper, rendering of a woman's robes. Bold patterns, sumptuous color combinations, and imaginative inter-
each 170 x 397 (67 x 15674),
Tokyo National Museum, pretations of nature or classical literary motifs are hallmarks of garments in Edo-period paintings of
Important Art Object
beautiful women. In such works we may view the patterns on the garments as something of an inverted
landscape; rather than landscape framing a scene, the human form becomes a frame on which land-
scape in the form of patterned garments is supported.
The ultimate statement of the Japanese artist's obsession with depicting attire is found in screens
on the poetic theme of tagasode, literally "whose sleeves?" Paintings of luxurious garments draped on
racks, their wearers out of sight, conjure notions of beautiful courtesans and erotic encounters. Poems on
the tagosode theme date to the Heian court of the tenth to thirteenth centuries, where the wearing of
fine garments became a language of political and personal significance, as illustrated by court novels
such as the Tale ofGenji.
In one example of a tagasode screen our gaze is first drawn to the desk with books and a lacquer
writing box with its lid off-kilter, as though someone was interrupted in the middle of his or her studies
(cat. 235). The eye then sweeps upward, adjusting to the head-on point of view used to depict the robes.
Finally we are tempted to move from the brightly lit, gold-leaf-plastered walls of the study to find out what
goes on in the darkness behind the closed sliding panels. As in The Rope Curtain, by showing an outer view
of a private realm, the artist evocatively alludes to the unseen dimension of inner feelings and imagination.

M O R O N O B U S By the late seventeenth century, as Edo began to rival Kyoto and Osaka as a cultural center, kabuki
F L O A T I N G W O R L D was quickly developing into serious theater, with adult male actors performing in complex plays. Two
examples of late seventeenth-century screens attributed to Hishikawa Moronobu, one of the founding
artists of the ukiyoe school of painting, document this new phase of kabuki staged entirely by male
actors (cats. 238, 239). Although most scholars believe that the works were probably not created
under Moronobu's direct supervision, they are in the artist's distinctive style.
Both sets of screens offer a front-row seat to the activities surrounding the Nakamura kabuki

theater in Edo about 1690. In the Tokyo National Museum version (cat. 238) a troupe of wakashu, young
male kabuki dancers, colorfully dressed in male and female costumes, parade across the stage in the
finale of the performance. Musicians visible on stage strum shamisen and pound drums. People of all